The textbook systematically presents source study as a scientific discipline and method of scientific knowledge. The concept of the textbook is based on the current status of source study as a strict science, understanding of the historical source as an objectified result of human activity as a product of culture and the transformation of the object of source study from a historical source through the species system of the corps of historical sources to the empirical reality of the historical world. Special attention is paid to the worldview and epistemological foundations of source study, its theory and method.